Aren’t the Covid 19 results for Victoria stunning at present? And we at Accent Home Care are working every day, to ensure we keep all consumers, staff, and community as safe as is possible.
My job is to facilitate improvements across TTHA business units including Accent Home Care. I thought I would share with you exactly what we do in order to be part of Victoria’s ‘donut’ days so that you can keep on being visited by our wonderful staff, while we maintain the Emergency Directions (VIC) that dictate visitations within aged care including community, and that we are mandated to follow.
‘Donut’ days don’t just happen by chance – they are planned, and backed up with education and teamwork at the very centre of how we execute our policies, procedures, and safe practices.
Infection Control meetings occur at least fortnightly and more frequently if required. X2 key board members – the Chair-Person and our Geriatrician Board Member and business unit heads, discussing the latest research outcomes, and how we can adapt or modify practices, workplaces, or ensuring that our own infection control actions meet the latest in standards. All information gleaned between meetings comes to this meeting and is shared with all participants, decisions made and modifications undertaken.
Before our staff step foot into their workplace (in this case your home) they are self-screening using an online tool and taking their temperatures, and warranting they are safe to attend the workplace. Just like every visitor that attends TTHA Residential, we too are scrutinized and recorded. We are able to recall these results for more than 28 days, as the government mandates.
Our staff are also asked to screen all their consumers to ensure it is safe for them to enter your home. It is also a really good physical check on how things are, and if there is an increase in potential Covid 19 symptoms within your household, that we should be concerned about. They then ring back to base and receive advice as to what their next step might be.
Stock is scrutinized and counted every fortnight and reported to our Infection Control Committee, our General Manager Community Care is responsible for ensuring that stock is adequate for our needs if we had an outbreak or a spike in community transmissions.
Training for all staff – residential, community care, and all administration – has been ongoing commencing with hand hygiene and moving swiftly to donning and doffing of full PPE. 120 staff have attended these training sessions which will continue to be run over the coming months, so that skills are up to standard and we can be confident that all staff, no matter where they work, can don and doff full PPE when and if they need to, for example, somebody who has returned from the hospital – as a precaution we isolate the consumer for a set period to protect our staff and the next consumers they might be visiting.
Easily carried tubs for the PPE that staff might need while at work in the community, have been purchased, and stocked, so that our staff are ready, and are able to pivot to donning full PPE (face mask, face shield, gown, gloves) and remove their PPE safely and store their rubbish.
All sorts of discussions have taken place as queries are raised in group settings, and learnings the taken away by all of our staff. To be honest, I have never seen our staff so engaged in training before – it just shows you how important they view and value this type of training.
Sessions like this will continue to be run at a minimum of 3 monthly and ramped up if and when there are hotspots close to our postcode, when there is a 3rd wave in Victoria, or new and vital learnings come to light, so we can be sure that our staff has the best defense at the front lines.
Competency sessions, by their nature, need to be 1:1 – a time-consuming task for a big employer like TTHA. Our expert trainers are assisting in the 1:1 competencies, and HR maintains education registers as they are completed.
Covid Plans are reviewed every week to ensure they meet Government guidelines and standards, new learnings incorporated into the plan, and new knowledge shared with staff and where appropriate, consumers and their representatives.
We have 2 plans:
Pandemic Action Plan which is now some 18 pages of vital information and actions that are required
A Workplace CovidSafe Plan that just focuses on staff requirements – things like what to wear when, the things we all understand like social distancing and wearing of PPE, the actions required when deliveries come to a site, not coming to work when feeling unwell, and actions, the cohorting of staff, the limiting of staff to a single site or workplace, including community care staff.
All plans reside in a Covid 19 Folder at front reception for when / if we have an outbreak and updated with every change to plans. “Plan for the worst, and hope for the best’!
And when I am not checking all of the above, we must also cross-check that staff are self-screening when they are rostered on duty and report to the managers of that business unit who of their staff requires follow up. This is a time-consuming process but the results are so worth it, nipping in the bud poor practices and ensuring we meet standard – vital in the fight against the spread of Covid 19.
Behind the scenes are incredibly busy maintaining a safe workplace, home, and community.
HR and the Service Coordinator continue to monitor staff health and oversee their wellness and fitness to work, maintaining spreadsheets of staff away with potential symptoms of Covid 19, plugging holes within our roster, ensuring staff cohort in their areas wherever possible, and liaising with government departments if we have suspected cases.
Everyone is on board. Suspected cases and actual cases are all reported to government agencies. Positive cases are reported to Worksafe, and the peak body in Victorian Aged Care Response Centre (VACRC). If we did have a positive case within our staff the Contract Tracers would be in contact with you if you have received a service from our staff, while they were deemed infectious or potentially infected.
If staff have been away from the workplace for over 2 weeks, they must repeat the training for the application and removal of their PPE all over again, and another competency, to ensure that we can maintain safety in the workplace. Again this is added to their education log by HR.
There has also been a lot of correspondence with our Accent Home Care partners in care and service delivery, to ensure they undertake similar processes.
It’s not good luck that we join Victoria in the ‘Donut’ Club, its diligence, teamwork, and a whole of community response. Every little step you take to maintain a safe workplace for our staff when in your home, also assists immeasurably. Collectively we have indeed maintained a safe environment for all! Thank you – every single one of you!
Helen Povall (0407 329 898)
Quality Manager
Onsite on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
If you would like to find out more about how our home care packages can support you, please click here to leave an enquiry or call us on (03) 8720 1338.